Dayton's raised $250,000 for his re-election campaign this year

Gov. Mark Dayton has raised $250,000 so far for his re-election campaign, a start to the significant fundraising he says he will do to keep the governor's office.

Dayton, who voluntarily reports his fundraising on a quarterly basis, has said he will not self-finance his 2014 effort. The governor, an heir to the Dayton's department store fortune, poured about $3.9 million into his 2010 effort.

Tinucci said he has $230,000 cash in the bank and not seeded his campaign coffers with his own money.

Gov. Mark Dayton

The haul is likely only a taste of what he will need to launch a strong re-election campaign. In 2010, when he was running for the first time, he spent $4.7 million to win. The governor this time around will have the power of incumbency to help him through. That's already paid off -- his campaign said he's just received endorsement from the Minnesota Building and Construction Trades Council. Before the 2010 primary, that nod went to Democrat Margaret Anderson Kelliher.

This time around four Republicans are already gunning for Dayton's job, including former House Speaker Kurt Zellers, state Sen. Dave Thompson, Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson and businessman Scott Honour. Honour, Johnson and Thompson will be making their first joint television appearance Friday's night on TPT's Almanac.

Unlike Dayton, who was technically five days late in filing if he were on a quarterly schedule, none of those four have voluntarily released quarterly finance reports. By law, candidates would not need to file reports until next year.

A Duluth native who just barely lost Virginia's GOP gubernatorial primary said that politicians have not gone far enough in condemning the left for violence during a rally of white nationalists in Charlottesville. "I think that the left is going to try to use this as an excuse to crack down on conservative free speech," said Corey Stewart. "I think they're going to try to use this as an excuse to remove more historical monuments."